Memeorandum

August 18, 2014

Ferguson - None So Deaf As Those Who Will Not Hear

Yesterday we finally picked up on the analysis of a video of the aftermath of the Ferguson shooting. With credit to the Conservative Treehouse for listening carefully, we gleaned that an apparent eyewitness, explaining the circumstances to a bystander, said that Michael Brown ran from the police truck and then doubled back.

Right wing media have been on this, but today the NY Times delivers a surprising non-surprise - in a report on the Michael Brown autopsy they include a link to the video in question but utterly overlook the key bit (from 6:30 forward). Here is the Times:

A 10-minute video posted on YouTube appeared to be taken on a cellphone by someone who identified himself as a neighbor. The video, which has collected more than 225,000 views, captures Mr. Brown’s body, the yellow police tape that marked off the crime scene and the residents standing behind it.

“They shot that boy ’cause they wanted to,” said one woman who can be heard on the video.

“They said he had his hands up and everything,” said the man taking the video, speaking to a neighbor.

Here is the key exchange as excerpted by the Conservative Treehouse:

#1 How’d he get from there to there?

#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck

{crosstalk}

#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him

{crosstalk}

#2 Then the next thing I know he coming back toward him cus - the police had his gun drawn already on him –

#1. Oh, the police got his gun

#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him...

Let's cut to the Times coverage of the autopsy:

FERGUSON, Mo. — Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.

The bullets did not appear to have been shot from very close range because no gunpowder was present on his body. However, that determination could change if it turns out that there is gunshot residue on Mr. Brown’s clothing, to which Dr. Baden did not have access.

Dr. Baden provided a diagram of the entry wounds, and noted that the six shots produced numerous wounds. Some of the bullets entered and exited several times, including one that left at least five different wounds.

“This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, indicating the wound at the very top of Mr. Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

That would be consistent with the statement above, that Michael Brown turned and charged.

Well, now that the Times has listened to the tape and deemed it a useful resource (by running other excerpts) I assume it is only a matter of time until they discover this evidence. It starts around the 6:30 mark with the "he double back/comin' back" just after 6:50. I'm sure they can take it from here!

Comments

With 100's of thugs looting, shooting and assaulting in Ferguson while police stand down, you now have a good example to use if any gun grabber asks you why your would ever need a 30 round mag (actually they would ask about a 30 round clip).

“This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, indicating the wound at the very top of Mr. Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

Or kneeling on the ground begging for mercy, only to be brutally executed by the white man and his power structure.

The gator was caught near Camden, Ala., by Mandy Stokes, at gator's head, along with her husband John Stokes, to her right, and her brother-in-law Kevin Jenkins, far left, and his two teenage children, Savannah Jenkins, 16, and Parker Jenkins, 14, all of Thomaston, Ala.

TK reminds me that there is still the funeral to come, which will be heavily attended and over the top and probably televised.

I wonder if they are leaning on that Hollywood coroner to say that there were bullet holes he missed. (I think they wouldn't hesitate one bit to pump some into the body if they thought they could get away with it - they being the DOJ.)

Can we arrest all the idiots who knew for a fact that Halo was shot in the back? I enjoyed reading some pieces at Talk Left during the St. Skittles™ kerfuffle, but their commentariat has gone full retard on this case. And they've already been proven wrong about shots to the back...

@Buckeye: I'd guess that reasonable people see this as another assault on decency from a lawless president and AG, and will not only vote against all this dem insanity, but they'll bring a friend to vote with them. Another huge backfire for President Feckless.

On behalf of the country, Judge Emmet Sullivan is pounding the IRS and appears as unsatisfied as most of America with the agency’s stalling, side-stepping, neglect, arrogance, and cavalier attitude toward its legally required record-retention responsibilities. Late yesterday afternoon, Judge Sullivan entered an order that demands answers to a lot more questions.

The IRS’s filing in Judge Sullivan’s court Monday evidenced no interest in finding the emails all of us know are out there somewhere. The fact that the IRS took thirty days to file its meager declarations, which actually said less than it had disclosed to Congress, is truly insulting. The agency better take Judge Sullivan seriously—and fast—or he’s the one who will be furious. Have IRS officials Kane and Koskinen still not reviewed what this fearless enforcer of the law did to the last Department of Justice prosecutors who played games with the truth in his courtroom? ...

The IRS is represented by Department of Justice attorneys. Do they not read the news, the latest books, or the law? This column has tried to warn them repeatedly that, like Toto, they’re not in Kansas any more. They are in the federal courtroom of a real Article III judge who has powers they should bloody well know not to ignore—the same kind wielded by Judge John Sirica, whose integrity and persistence in dealing with the Watergate case led to the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.

This is the same Emmet Sullivan who appointed a special prosecutor and initiated criminal contempt proceedings and a full investigation of the Department of Justice attorneys who played unethical and dishonest games in the prosecution of United States Senator Ted Stevens.

Someone in DOJ or the IRS better find those emails, fast, or this Judge will do it for them and they’ll just think they were caught up in a Category V tornado—or wish they had been and carried off to Oz instead. Judge Sullivan will keep on until he finds the man behind the curtain.

One of the things I can’t help but continue to wonder is, if the emails and all the information truly were not recoverable from the Lerner hard drive, why did the hard drive have to be “degaussed” and destroyed to “protect taxpayer privacy”? And why did someone testify to Congress that an IRS IT expert said it should be given to an outside vendor to retrieve the messages—and instead, the hard drive was degaussed and shredded?

With each turn, the IRS has raised more questions than it has answered. But this time it’s not the media and the citizens doing the asking. They’ve now got a week to answer to a judge

Someone in DOJ or the IRS better find those emails, fast, or this Judge will do it for them and they’ll just think they were caught up in a Category V tornado—or wish they had been and carried off to Oz instead. Judge Sullivan will keep on until he finds the man behind the curtain.

Maybe. Looks to me like Judge Sullivan let Washington, DC, steal a Senate seat from Alaska with no serious consequences.

I plan on encouraging as many of my like minded friends to vote as I can.

Not much on the ballot in Ahia this fall other than Governors race which is shaping up to be a landslide. The "edmund fitzgerald" has been running ads suggesting the state is near the end of the pack in job creation. LIV might buy it but most of the public sees it as an act of desperation.

Seems to be backfiring, but a lot can happen in 3 months. Appears to be significant outside money starting to pour in.

Wow.
I got about half way through Lew Alcindor's latest scribbling linked above and will quite probably never waste my time on his stuff again.
It is hard to recall a more shabbily sourced and reasoned piece than that scrawl.
A couple of previous pieces of his were pretty good. He was either stoned out of his gourd then or now. I'll let someone else figure out what his natural state is.

St L ME -Brown had marijuana in his system,and was shot from front.Michael Brown was shot in the head and chest multiple times, according to Mary Case, the St. Louis County medical examiner.

While Case declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation into Brown’s death, another person familiar with the county’s investigation told The Washington Post that Brown had between six and eight gunshot wounds and was shot from the front.

In addition, Brown had marijuana in his system when he was shot and killed by a police officer on Aug. 9 in Ferguson, according to this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

If they go after Wilson, the certain outcome will be a much greater reluctance by police to interfere with the operations of the local branch of the South Side Conflict Resolution and Waste Disposal Company.

Has anyone ever figured out how something like this gets traction and other worse, but similar, incidents don't?

Cops and civilians shoot unarmed black (and white) people not infrequently and usually there's not a peep out of anyone but sometimes it metastasizes instantly into riots and a national melodrama.
What makes the difference?

I am confused. I went to bed having just seen the NYTimes story on the autopsy, showing the Gentle Giant had been shot 6 times, not in the back as suspect number 2 stated, so that part of the narrative was resolved.

In paragraph 4 we get this: ...forensics consultant Shawn Parcells, who assisted Baden, said the findings are consistent with witness reports that Brown may have been shot as he walked away and that he was shot again with his hands up.

How so?

I'm not a big time forensic expert, but how do you get shot in the front if your'e walking away from the guy doing the shooting?

And how do you get shot in your arms that are held up over your head if the bullets entered the front of your arms, not the underside?

If Crump goes full Trayvon, I would think the anti-race baiting increase in turnout would exceed the Gentle Giant increase in turnout. But Crump doesn't care about turnout in the 2014 elections. The family hired Crump to extract a settlement from Ferguson. Crump proved in the Trayvon matter that he is expert at extracting a settlement (I believe from the homeowners' association). Look for this to get ugly until the Gentle Giant's family gets the money.

Dr. Baden said he had waived his usual $10,000 fee for the autopsy, adding, “Many black men die of accident or homicide in this country, and the President of the United States has yet to get involved.”

--Beasts of England, we've never chatted before but I ask that you lose the word retard.--

I've been hesitant about using that word myself sometimes but I'm not sure where you can draw a line.
Is "idiotic" out? Moron, imbecile, stupid, dummy? How does one indicate a person is acting as though they are profoundly mentally challenged, usually more so than they actually are, without using potentially offensive words?

Daddy, I'm not a forensics expert, but I think there was a head wound that could have been caused by a shot while the Gentle Giant was attempting to defuse the situation by walking away. In any event, I think the new narrative for Team Crump will focus on GG trying to surrender while the racist cop kept filling him with those earplugs.

Reading comments at the NYTimes which is always guaranteed to make me dumber and angrier.

So if the cop is crazy and rogue and a trigger happy racist who wanted to shoot black guys, why not shoot the second black guy also? Why just swiss cheese the Gentle Giant but not the Gentle non-Giant?

I probably use the word "retard" more than Beasts does and mean nothing derogatory toward anybody other than at whom it is specifically directed. Per Iggy, is there something particularly wrong with using that versus other terms of slow-wittedness?

This shooting was "suburban" while the rack 'em ups are in urban blue hells. Milwaukee has an officer shoot a "teen" every couple of months (Chicago probably has more). The last was a couple weeks ago right next to city hall, a youth with mental health issues was shot and killed by city police. In Milwaukee that gets drowned out within hours by other "teens" killing children during gunfights in playgrounds.

Regardless of Rick Perry or Lehmberg or Ronnie Earle it seems kind of crazy to me that Texas would have a statewide public integrity unit run out of a local DA's office.
That should have been changed long ago to a more independent, stand-alone organization regardless of who they were going after.

Bet they do, Dave. Common sense is not in abundance in that group. Although, most of the caRp that went down last night was 9 - midnight and pre curfew anyways. I'd bet on some strike and run activity and some activity moving to other areas.

What do y'all make of Gov. Nixon sending the msg about the MO National Guard taking command of Ferguson in the middle of the night as his handpicked AA Capt. Hug-a-Thug was ending his nightly update ... with BOzo/WH this morning claiming they didn't know about Nixon's NG decision until they read it in this morning's paper?